Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-06-25

bold baron has control and authority
over the machines, and because tn,
wage Garner is simply the soul of tn,
machine, supplied only as it Is with
what a good working condition re
| quires, the union was formed. Its rea-
season for existence is the bold baron's
desire to bay his labor rs he does his
material, in the cheapest market. The
workingmen, ike the owners of mate
rial, combine to sustain the market
price, that the bold baron would break
down. Their standard Of living meas
ures the wages they are willing to re-
ceive. 1t is their purchasing power
that enables them to do the required
work. 10 take less would unfit them
for service. To sustain the market
against the inroads of the bold baron,
the union abjures for It's members the
rights the constitution prerends 30
guarantee. And the bold barons wish,
patriots that they are, to restore their
surrendered liberties to the members.
The unions do not aim to share the
profits. Formed for resistance to ag-
erosion, as were the walls of the free
towns, every regulation they adopt is
adopted under the pressure of neccs-
sity-ls but rs a bastion or a ditch TO
make the wall more defensible.
Their existence is evidence Of retro
gression in society. The monopoly OF
machinery Is producing the same effects
rs did the feudal monopoly of the land.
Ii properly used labor-saving machin-
cry would bless the world. As used It
tends to produce q serfdom no less
brutaliZing than the feudal bondage.
The resultant saving, whore production
is on a large scale, by the comparative
cheapncss Of superintendent, the mi
mute subdivision OF labor, the control Of
expensive machinery gives the great
capitalist such advantage that the small
perish iii their shade. The free work
er, the smallest capitalist possible own
ing only his body, is dragged from the
cross-road villages, where a generation
ago be lived by his trade that was the
inheritance of his boys, where he en-
joyed liberty and was fitted 10 hold his
place in a s~elf-governed community,
is torn from the home he de-
lighted to decorate to be domi-
ciled in the dismal tenement house,
buzzing with discord and strife, but "a
tenant in a desert drerier than Sahara,
that it would be blasphemy to call a
home. The loss the community sus-
tains by his inevitable decentralization
is not to be counted in dollars. For
lack of exercise his f~orethought and
precision disappear; he becomes merely
a part of the machine he feeds or
tends. His wits are not sharpcned
once Il year by a bargain-maklng. He
protects himself by giving his union
authority 10 make his contracts. The
little capital he might accumulate by
frugality dcgencrated to S%tinginess he
cannot see. nor can il be shown him.
would in the end compensate for the
%privationS endured TO gather IT. De.
graded intellectually, debased morally,
so also is he physically destroyed.
After he has attained his majority he
cannot count upon nor than half the
Years he might have lived if he had
not been dragged 10y this modern So
sostris behind his conquoring car, from
all the associations that made life
worth living. His children inherit hi.
i~ncapacitv: ambition dies at the frs;
gasp of the child born into the atmo--
phere Of wages scrfdom. The direct
tendency of the relation between the
employer and The employed IS to de-
prave men. The hirer's main object is
TO Get all the labor he can for hi,
wages. The wage-earncr's condition
is but to satisfy the foreman, to make
his day. The relations hirer and hired
are in essence the same as those be.
tween master and slave. There is no
reciprocity of interest, no fellow fetl-
ing. The Saturday pay leaves helmless
men, incapable of ~self-steering, to drift
on the shoals and rocks on which mar
is wrecked. The bold b%arons, the land
lords, grant the licenses that tolerate
these reefs on the sea of life, for the
viler the business, the higher the rent.
Dynamite blew up He'll Gate, in New
York harbor, but the bold barons who,
partners in infamy. share in their rents
these accursed profits. forbid the mora
dynamite that would destroy these
gates of hell.
But in this conflict the Saturday paw
cuts no figure. The brutalized and
selfish strikers, incapable of St. Paul's
moralitv-'If eating meat causes my
brother to offend, | will eat no more
meat while the world stands''-demand
it, and the masters, if that were all,
would gladly concede it. Their own
convenience, and they shanlelessly
avow it, was their sole motive
in the matter. In their PROPOSE
ton of a Monday payday no horror
Of the debasing results CT the Saturday,
no impulse of betterment for the social
lives of their fellows. could shock Or
thrill their sordid souls. The demand
made proves the indifference of the
workers to the fate of their fellow
mariners who shall sail the seas Of life
without a chart or compass, but cynic-
ism found its limit when a master
builder, cheerful, liberal, "a good fel-
low" among his associates, and whose
influence is great among them, said to
me: at cuts no figure"
Moses, who showed his sympathy
for his fellow by making an end of his
OnpresSOr. orders wages To be paid for